I hope that the top coat of two pack polyurethane turns out as well as the first undercoat. Friday was marginal painting weather due to the breeze but under the tarpaulins I managed the first coat of undercoat quite well and am pleased with the result. The weekend was for Laser sailing with both days gusting up to 25 knots so by today I needed a rest. After coffee we found a package on the front doorstep and it was the mast base for the new rig. It is a very fine base indeed and the Ronstan blocks fit perfectly on the swivelling studs.
For a rest I picked up the mainsail and boom bag and some more top coat for the topsides. Hopefully that is the last I will need for the exterior. After the weekend the undercoat was ready for sanding and this afternoon it sanded down very well. The overspray on the masking plastic sheets was however peeling off in thin flakey pieces so I had to remove all the masking and will need to redo it for each of the next two coats.
The new mainsail was laid out for inspection and the ball slides for the batten ends removed from the cruising sail and added to the new racing main. It is a big sail and weighs 32 kg so we will want to put it on the boom once and leave it there.
For interest I photographed the cruising main on top of the new one. The cruising main started life as a large roach main on the standard SO37 rig. We added 1.7 metres to the mast height and extra panels were added to the foot. It worked very well so I had another 900 mm added to the foot so we could use it as a cruising main on the Didi 40 Cr in case we should we ever take off for a long cruise.
Very happy with the two pack polyurethane undercoat on our Didi 40 cr
A very nice mast base was on the doorstep this morning
The new fat head main with the pin head cruising main sitting on top
This shows the size of the original SO37 main compared to the new fat head main on the Didi 40 Cr